N-Logue Project, where are we heading guys?

N-Logue Communications, a Chennai based company focused on rural internet is taking its next big step in bridging the Digital Divide in the nation.

N-Logue was launched to fulfil the need for Internet and voice services in every underserved small town and village in India. With headquarters in Chennai, it has already successfully enabled internet access in a number of rural areas.

They have done a lot of similar projects before for the enhancement of the rural life. Thier latest endeavour involves an interesting outline of a project on how we bloggers can make a big difference in the digital divide of India and the measures we could take and contribute to empower rural india to bring to the global platform.

N- Logue project is run by the TeNet Goup in IIT Madras under Dr. Ashok Jhujhunwalla. The project is managed by Mr. Falguni, Ms. Saloni and Ms. Aarthi from TeNet.

Now as far as I understand it, this is how it works. The TeNet group wants to hire the BlogCamp organizers, who have done a phenomenal job with the organization part of BlogCamp. Now the basic outline of the project is:

TeNet chooses five villagers from five different villages and get them to blog in their regional language. They require people how have good knowledge of blogging (us) to help them educate these rural people who hardly know how to operate a computer let alone the internet. This is fine by me. But their business model is what irks me.

TeNet would support these five villagers with a monthly pay of Rs. 2,500 (Eq = USD 50) depending on how often they post, for about an year. By the end of the year, the blogs by themselves must become self sustaining. How? Google ads, magazine reports etc.

The problem with their business model is that they have no clue about blogging and have come up with the numbers. For one a blog in a regional language won’t make much money of ads. Most Google adwords users are from the US of A. Why would they want their ads on a regional blog with content on the daily lives of the villagers?

Magazine reports. Well, I sure as well don’t see what these people can post that might interest the magazines to pay them thousands of money and buy their article for publication.

I have been blogging for quite sometime and I can assure you that who ever said “Blogging for Money is easy” is a liar.

Let alone the aftermath of the project, lets get to the depth of the begining. The Knowledge Foundation (Organizers of BlogCamp and other such events, which I am a part of), is getting into a huge commitment by accepting this deal. Firstly, we don’t get paid. Secondly, many of us aren’t good at Tamil. Thirdly, to educate the rural sector is going to take a long time. Well, if we manage to do that, I am sure we can win some elections (C’mon, we guys have done what the govt. couldnt achieve for such a long time). Even after tutoring them patiently, we will have to sit and moderate their posts and the system for quite sometime.

Why should the knowledge Foundation do it? The hot porspects are as of now 1) Altruism 2) Classic addition to resume (Part of a global project).

My only hitch with the above prospects are, what is the point if the odds of success of this project is ZERO.

If you are interested in this project get in touch with Syed, here.

Technorati Tags: n-logue, iit madras, knowledge foundation, blogcamp, digital divide, rural project, TeNet, jhujhunwalla, falguni

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